The King's Blood

“They’re corrupted.”
    “Yes, my lord. It’s just hard to see that when you’re looking at a man who maybe saved your life in Asterilhold. It’s not as though those men crossed us personally. They’re only following what their lords are telling them to do, sir.”
    Just as we are , hung in the air between them. Dawson heard the warning in it. It wasn’t only hope that was fading, it was also loyalty. The glory of battle required an enemy they could hate, and apart from the priests and Palliako, Dawson didn’t have one. He wondered whether the others— Ternigan, Daskellin, Broot—were suffering the same problem. He hoped they were.
    “Thank you for your candor,” Dawson said crisply. “Let’s have those barricades remade. If we can defend the position with fewer men, we can send out more hunting parties, yes?”
    “Yes, Lord. I believe we could do that.”
    “We’ll do that, then.”
    The sun moved slowly in the great arch of sky above the city. Dawson found himself resenting it. It and all the stars hiding behind its skirts. The Kingspire caught the light for a moment, flashing like a bolt of lightning that didn’t fade. He could imagine Palliako up there in his secret rooms, looking down at Dawson, at the city. That was where to go. If there was an attack to be made, a final assault, it would be to root Palliako out of his perch on the Kingspire. To haul him off the Severed Throne and put Aster there in his place. Already the boy would be a better king than Palliako…
    A voice boomed out. The echoes bouncing from the can-yon walls of the buildings made the words indistinct, but the timbre of it was familiar. Dawson’s gut went tight as he walked and then trotted to where the new barricades were taking shape. His men were divided: half went on piling logs, tables, upended carts in the street, building defenses against the blades of their countrymen, and half stood silent, hands on their bows and swords, ready to push back when the new assault came.
    But it didn’t come. No melee. No blades.
    In the square they had just withdrawn from, a siege tower stood on massive wooden wheels, pushed by a company of slaves at the back. Fifty swordsmen at least marched at its base, but didn’t call the charge. At the tower’s head, almost as high as the roofs themselves, an archer’s house stood, its thick wooden sides proof against incoming arrows and bolts. But instead of archers leaning out from its window to rain down upon them, there was the grey cone of a caller’s tube. The words booming out from it were the deep, rolling voice of Basrahip, the high priest of the spider goddess. Geder’s puppetmaster.
    “Listen to my voice,” he called. “You have already lost. Everything you fight for is meaningless. You cannot win. Listen to my voice …”

Cithrin
     
    Y
    ou need a bath,” Sandr said, prodding Charlit Soon with his toe. And then a moment later, “ I need a bath.”
    “I think we can say we’d all do well with baths,” Cary said. “And fresh food. And maybe a rainstorm.”
    Cithrin squatted on the back of the cart, a bowl of stewed barley in her hand. She hadn’t come out of the hole until just after midday, and even after the walk to Yellow House, the sun seemed too bright. Twelve days in the darkness. So far.
    “Well, the good news is we found your high priest,” Cary said. “The bad is that he’s holed up in the middle of an army and won’t let anyone come near him. I thought about passing him a letter, but I wasn’t sure you’d want that.”
    Cithrin frowned. The truth was, she was of two minds. Several times in the last week, she’d have offered to cut off a toe if it meant a warm bed, a good meal, and five hours in a bathhouse. When Geder and Aster emerged from the hole, there would be no reason for her to be down in it with them, and she was coming to truly loathe that place. But when the time came, Geder would become Lord Regent Palliako again. Aster would be prince and king. Everything would change.
    She’d been sent here to find out what she could about Antea in the face of its war with Asterilhold. Now she was hiding with two of the most important leaders, present and future, that the kingdom would have. What she’d learned was that Geder Palliako was a funny, somewhat awkward man who loved books of improbable history. That Aster hadn’t known how to spit for distance, and now—thanks to her—he did. She saw the affection between the pair of them, and the